Dr. Fixit Pidicrete AM
The powder admixture that turns a plain bag of OPC into pumpable, shrinkage-compensated grout for slab voids, cable ducts, rock anchors and structural cracks.
What is it?
A brownish-grey powder blend of plasticisers, an expansion agent, polymers and a defoamer, dosed straight into cement (or cement-sand) mortar to produce flowable, non-shrink cementitious grout — not a standalone product used on its own.
Where is it used?
RCC and sunken slabs, water-tank and swimming-pool walls, basements, post-tensioning ducts, rock and soil anchors, tunnel linings, and structural crack and baseplate repairs.
Why use it?
One dose eliminates the shrinkage gap that plain cement grout leaves around reinforcement or anchor bolts, cuts the water-cement ratio for a denser and less permeable fill, and keeps the mix pumpable enough to reach voids gravity alone can’t.
How is it applied?
Dosed at a fixed 225 g per 50 kg bag of cement (plus sand for bed grouting), mixed 3-5 minutes in a drill or paddle mixer, then placed by gravity, injection pump, or poured as a flowing mortar over a saturated surface-dry (SSD) substrate.
About Dr. Fixit Pidicrete AM
Dr. Fixit Pidicrete AM (Pidilite product code 207) sits in the Building Repairs section of the Dr. Fixit range, alongside crack-repair pastes and structural strengthening compounds — it isn’t a waterproofing coating or a tile grout, it’s a cement additive. Mix it into a neat cement slurry or a cement-sand mortar and it does three things at once: a plasticiser drops the water demand so the grout flows without extra water diluting its strength, an expansion component offsets the natural shrinkage of curing cement so the grout stays in full contact with the steel or substrate it was placed against, and a defoamer knocks out entrained air that would otherwise leave pinholes in a pressure-injected mix. Pidilite tests it to ASTM C109, ASTM C307 and BS 1881 Part 207 — recognised grout compressive-strength and splitting-tension protocols — which gives a site engineer a documented basis to specify it rather than a generic “add polymer to cement” approach.
On the ground in Delhi NCR this is the product that comes out when a sunken slab in a bathroom or kitchen needs its voids filled solid before the waterproofing membrane and tiling go on, when a post-tensioned slab’s cable ducts need grouting after stressing, when a rock or soil anchor on a basement shoring job needs its bond length filled without a shrinkage gap forming around the bar, or when a machine baseplate or a UG water tank wall has honeycombing that needs to be pressure-grouted rather than just patched. Space Arc’s applicator teams typically pair it with Dr. Fixit Crack X Paste for surface-level crack sealing and Dr. Fixit Pidiproof LW+ where the same structure also needs an integral waterproofing admixture in the parent concrete — Pidicrete AM handles the void-filling and anchoring, the other two handle the surface and the parent pour.
The technical insight
The two properties worth understanding before specifying Pidicrete AM are its shrinkage behaviour and its setting window. Ordinary cement paste shrinks a few percent as it hydrates and dries — enough that a grout poured around a dowel, anchor bolt or post-tensioning strand can pull away and leave a hairline annular gap, which is exactly the path water and chlorides use to reach and corrode the steel. The expansion additive in Pidicrete AM is calibrated to offset that shrinkage (the datasheet records shrinkage as NIL under test conditions), so the grout stays mechanically locked to the substrate. Setting time is listed as a wide 30-600 minutes because it’s governed by ambient temperature, cement brand and the actual water-cement ratio used on site (0.30-0.45 for injection grout, tighter at 0.20-0.25 for the sand-cement bed-grout mix) — on a hot Delhi-NCR summer pour that window compresses sharply, which is why the manufacturer flags a site trial batch before full-scale grouting rather than trusting the datasheet figure blind. It’s also worth noting this is chloride- and iron-free, which rules it out as a source of corrosion risk in itself — a real consideration given how many cheaper “grout admixtures” sold loose in the market are aluminium-powder gas-expansion types that carry a hydrogen-embrittlement caution for prestressing steel.
Where it is used
- Injection grouting of RCC slabs and sunken slabs, gravity-fed or pumped
- Grouting RCC walls of water tanks and swimming pools to seal seepage paths
- Basement wall and floor grouting for waterproofing repairs
- Duct grouting of post-tensioning cable ducts after stressing
- Rock and soil anchor grouting on shoring and retaining-wall projects
- Pre-placed aggregate concrete and tunnel-lining grouting
- Injection of structural cracks in RCC members
- Bed grouting under machine baseplates and structural repairs
Key advantages
- Shrinkage-compensated — grout stays in full contact with reinforcement and substrate instead of pulling away as it cures
- Lowers the water-cement ratio for a denser, less permeable grout that resists water and chloride ingress
- Stays flowable enough to gravity-feed or pump into narrow ducts, anchor holes and honeycombed voids
- Chloride- and iron-free, so it doesn’t itself introduce a corrosion risk to embedded steel
- Doesn’t retard cement’s natural setting — per the datasheet it doesn’t reduce, and can improve, ultimate strength
- Tested to ASTM C109, ASTM C307 and BS 1881 Part 207, giving specifiers a documented QC basis rather than a generic claim
- Fixed, simple site dosing (225 g per 50 kg cement bag) that removes guesswork for mixing crews
- 12-month shelf life in unopened packaging, practical for stocking on multi-site or remote projects
Limitations & considerations
- It’s an admixture, not a ready-to-use grout — final performance depends on the mason getting the cement, sand and especially the water-cement ratio right, and over-watering to ‘make it flow easier’ quietly kills the strength gain
- The 30-600 minute setting window is wide and heavily temperature-dependent, so a site trial batch is genuinely necessary in Delhi-NCR’s summer heat rather than optional paperwork
- Not a substitute for engineering judgement on hole spacing, grouting pressure or anchor depth — the manufacturer explicitly leaves those calls to site decision
- For precision, high-early-strength grouting under vibrating machinery baseplates, specifiers sometimes still prefer a purpose-built free-flow precision grout over a general injection/bed-grout admixture
- Sold mainly through the dealer network in 25 kg bulk bags with 225 g/4.5 kg retail packs — buyers need to plan quantity against the fixed dosage to avoid part-bag wastage on small repairs
- Manual batching (drill mixer for small jobs, paddle mixer for large ones) means consistency depends on crew discipline, not a factory-controlled premix
Selection & best practice
Hold the dosage exactly at 225 g Pidicrete AM per 50 kg cement, never add extra water to loosen a stiff mix — that’s what the plasticiser is for — and keep the water-cement ratio inside the datasheet’s 0.30-0.45 (injection) or 0.20-0.25 (bed grout) band. Run a small trial batch on the actual site cement before a full pour, especially in peak summer, to confirm working time. Cure the finished grout for 24 hours before wet-hessian curing or Dr. Fixit Curing Compound, and let Space Arc’s trained applicators judge grouting pressure and hole layout on site rather than fixing it on paper in advance.
Specifications
| Chemistry / composition | Plasticisers, expansion (shrinkage-compensating) additive, polymers and defoamer — brownish-grey powder |
| Bulk density (50 taps) | 0.92 – 1.06 gm/cc |
| Shrinkage | NIL (shrinkage-compensated) |
| Setting time | 30 – 600 minutes (site- and temperature-dependent) |
| Dosage | 225 g Pidicrete AM per 50 kg cement |
| Yield / coverage | 26-34 litres of grout per 50 kg cement + 225 g Pidicrete AM at w/c ratio 0.30-0.45 |
| Standards | ASTM C109:99, ASTM C307, BS 1881 Part 207 |
| Packaging | 25 kg bulk bag; 225 g and 4.5 kg retail packs via dealer network |
| Shelf life | 12 months from manufacture, unopened, stored cool and dry |
Industry use cases
Sunken slab & bathroom waterproofing prep
Filling sunken-slab voids solid ahead of membrane and tiling work in Delhi-NCR residential highrises, so the waterproofing coat sits on a sound, non-shrink base rather than trapped air pockets.
Underground water tank & basement repair
Injection grouting RCC walls of UG water tanks and basements in Gurugram/Noida societies to close seepage paths at construction joints and honeycombed patches.
Post-tensioned slab duct grouting
Filling cable ducts on PT slabs after stressing on commercial and institutional projects, where a shrinkage gap around the strand is not acceptable.
Rock and soil anchor grouting
Bonding soil-nail and rock-anchor bars on basement shoring and retaining-wall jobs, where full-length contact with the bar governs pull-out capacity.
Baseplate & structural crack repair
Bed-grouting machine baseplates in industrial sheds and injecting structural cracks in RCC members as part of a wider repair scope.
Frequently asked questions
Is Pidicrete AM the same thing as tile grout?
What cement and sand does it work with?
Can it be used to waterproof a sunken slab?
How much cement does one 25 kg bag treat?
Does it risk corroding the reinforcement it’s grouted around?
How soon can the area take load or be tiled over?
How we position Dr. Fixit Pidicrete AM
Within the Dr. Fixit Building Repairs range, Pidicrete AM is the void-filling and anchoring specialist — pair it with Dr. Fixit Crack X Paste for surface crack sealing and Dr. Fixit Pidiproof LW+ where the parent concrete also needs an integral waterproofing admixture, or with Dr. Fixit Pidicrete URP where a repair mortar rather than a pumpable grout is called for. For precision, high-flow machine-baseplate grouting where free-flow under a plate — rather than injection into a void — is the job, specifiers sometimes step up to a purpose-built precision grout like Fosroc Conbextra GP2; Space Arc stocks and applies both families and will recommend whichever suits the actual grouting geometry and loading.
Fosroc Conbextra GP2 — A specifier working on high-load, free-flow machine-baseplate grouting rather than general injection or bed grouting might choose Conbextra GP2 for its purpose-built precision-grout flow and higher early-strength gain.
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